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Virgin Trains East Coast
Virgin Trains East CoastIntroducing Virgin Trains East CoastCompanies House extract company no 8753471 Inter City Railways Limited is a train operating company in the United Kingdom that operates the InterCity East Coast franchise on the East Coast Main Line between London, Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. It commenced operations on 1 March 2015, taking over from East Coast. Virgin Trains East Coast is a joint venture between Stagecoach (90%), and Virgin (10%). Originally intended to run until 2023, it was later cut back to 2020. In February 2018, the franchise will be terminated in the middle of 2018 as a result of Stagecoach failing to meet key financial obligations with the operation of the franchise, marking the third collapse of the InterCity East Coast. While the operation itself was profitable, VTEC placed part of the blame for the underperformance with respect to their franchise bid on their belief the state had failed to deliver expected upgrades or new trains, while the government claimed VTEC had simply overbid. Given it was the third instance of the East Coast franchise that needs to be terminated early for financial reasons, it was announced that the next permanent arrangement, to begin in 2020, would feature closer cooperation between the private sector and the Network Rail, the state owner of the infrastructure. History In January 2014, FirstGroup, Keolis/Eurostar and Stagecoach/Virgin were announced as the shortlisted bidders for the new InterCity East Coast franchise. In November 2014, the eight-year franchise was awarded to the Stagecoach/Virgin joint venture company Inter City Railways Limited, and commenced operating on 1 March 2015 trading as Virgin Trains East Coast. Due to the concerns over the driver-only operation in the Virgin Trains East Coast,, in addition to the 200 nearly planned compulsory redundancies and staff pay concerns, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers announced that three train strikes would be held by all workers (except depot maintenance workers) at VTEC in August 2016, and however following the negotiations, these were eventually cancelled. A further breakdown between the negotiations of the RMT and VTEC resulted in the union calling for further industrial action, which took place for 24 hours on 3 October 2016. Further strikes were subsequently called on 28-29 April 2017, however this was cancelled before could take place again following "progress" made by the union and the operator. On 28 June 2017, Stagecoach made a loss when trades were down 11% due to the loss of the East Coast franchise and entered the talks with the government. The RMT called for the renationalisation of the franchise, although it was quite confident that Stagecocach could made a profit within two years. In November 2017, the Transport Secretary Chris Grayling announced that the franchies would become the first to have public-private railway as part of reforms, and as a result, Virgin Trains East Coast will have the franchise ended in 2020 to allow the new deal to take place. VTEC had to pay more than $2 billion in franchise premiums to the government over the last four months of the contract. In February 2018, the end of the franchise was brought forward by several months. The DfT will either negotiate a deal with the VTEC to continue to run the franchise on a temporary non-profit basis while a new franchise competition is conducted or it will be taken over by the DfT's operator of last resort, a partnership of Arup Group, Ernst & Young and SNC-Lavalin Rail & Transit. Services Virgin Trains East Coast took over all of the services operated by East Coast. It categorises its weekday services from into four routes: Virgin Trains East Coast have committed to introduce extra services to Stirling and via in December 2015, with services later to be introduced to and . Timetable Basic off-peak timetable service patterns from London King's Cross: *Half hourly service to **1tph departing at xx:05 calling at , and **1tph departing at xx:35 calling at , , Doncaster and Wakefield Westgate **1 service extended daily to **1 service extended daily to **1 service extended daily to *Half hourly service to **1tph (semi-fast service) departing at xx.30 calling at , , , , , and . These services are extended at peak hours to Edinburgh calling at Alnmouth. **1tph (London - Edinburgh express service) departing at xx.00 calling at and . Late evening services terminate at Newcastle calling at other stations on route. **1 semi-fast service is extended daily to via Edinburgh. *Hourly service to (express service) **1tph departing at xx.00 calling at , , and **3 trains extended daily to via **1 train extended daily to via Stirling and *Hourly service to Newark North Gate extended every two hours to York **1tph departing at xx.20 calling at all stations on route. **1 service extended daily to Newcastle **1 service extended daily to Lincoln Rolling stock Virgin Trains East Coast commenced operating with rolling stock transferred from East Coast. Most driving vehicles received a Virgin logo within the first 3 days of the franchise, and all trains will receive a full Virgin Trains East Coast livery by the end of August 2015. £21 million will then be invested between August 2015 and August 2017 in improving these trains by increasing reliability, refreshing toilets and replacing seat covers, carpets, tables and on-board signage. Virgin Trains East Coast will participate in the Intercity Express Programme along with First Great Western. The project will replace the Intercity 125 and InterCity 225 fleets with new Hitachi Class 800/Class 801 high-speed trains. By December 2018 the new trains are planned to be running on the East Coast Main Line in 9-carriage and 5-carriage sets. The fleet is maintained at Bounds Green, Neville Hill, Heaton and Craigentinny depots. Loyalty scheme One of the initial announcements upon winning the franchise was that the popular East Coast Rewards loyalty scheme would be closed down and replaced with a choice of Nectar or Virgin Atlantic Flying Club miles. Both schemes will give 2 points per pound spent on Virgin Trains East Coast services only, unlike East Coast Rewards points will not be earned on travel on other rail services. At the time of closure East Coast Rewards had over 670,000 members. For a limited period members will be able to use up their East Coast Rewards points on the regular catalogue of rewards or convert their points to Nectar. The new scheme offers a substantially worse redemption rate than the old one did up to January 2015; a purchase of £300 of first class tickets under the old system would have given a complimentary first class single ticket, but under the new system merely gives a £3 travel credit for Virgin Trains East Coast advances. External links * * Category:East Coast Main Line Category:Railway companies established in 2015 Category:Rail transport in Scotland Category:Stagecoach Group rail services Category:Train operating companies T Category:Virgin Trains Category:2015 establishments in the United Kingdom